Monthly Archives: December 2009

December 6, 2009

The sun makes the infinity symbol in its travels through a year

The sun makes the infinity symbol in its travels through a year

This may be the most complicated photo taken EVAH. The method of getting the sun to demonstrate its flight overhead over the course of a year wasn’t easy and is described HERE. Hat tip to the traveling John Heinous.

My daughter has posted the most incredible film starring my grand-daughter on her blog, Mom-A-Tron, and I beg you go see and hear the smartest 7-year-old on Planet Earth.

My sister writes on her blog, MindOverMary, that she wants to go on a genealogical detective hunt for my adopted father’s biological roots and needs a brother to go with her. I have some mixed feelings, but my curiosity presently dominates.

There were lots of things to do this weekend. A few of the things on my list were: IAO opening, Baubles show at Red Cup, the opening of Oh! studios by the lovely Juliet and her partners, First Friday gallery walk on Paseo and the opening of Picaso’s, the much anticipated successor to the beloved Galileo’s. The teapots at JRB Art Gallery were interesting, but there was one teapot with “bullet” teacups that looked remarkably like, well, male genitalia. Joy Reed Belt also showed some really wonderful and bright works in the main room that I wished I could afford.

Being a tea-totaller, I passed on something that sounded like soooo much fun: the Snuggie Pub Crawl initiated by The Lost Ogle. The pub crawl focused on the Classen Circle clubs (Edna’s, Drunkenfry, HiLo and Speakeasy on 51st) and the star of the event was JD Merryweather’s Coop Ale Works beers. JD is a well known and wonderful photographer who lives and works in my Paseo “bubble”; he’s also a helluva great guy.

Love you guys and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Blogblah

December 2, 2009

shut up, he explained

shut up, he explained


Obama’s speech at West Point yesterday left me with nothing, really, but cognitive dissonance. A Nobel Peace Laureate wants to put 100,000 American troops into Afghanistan to kill brown people for peace. Right. No, wrong. Uhm…

Just about 40 years ago today, I think I was carrying a sign that read “Killing for peace is like f***ing for chastity”. Obama said this isn’t like Vietnam and maybe he’s right, but some things sure seem to be the same.

The only thing I know for sure is that my Red State Republican friends who tell me they don’t like this president because they are birthers or some other form of craziness are going to be told by me that anyone who doesn’t support my president in a time of war is an unpatriotic traitor. Been waiting to do that for a while.

Do we know yet whether the troops that are going to Kabul will be troops we are pulling out of Bagdhad? Do we have any iron-clad guarantees that the wall of troops we will put in Kandahar will be part of a Pakistani effort on the other side of the border?

Sure hope that Rep. David Obey, who proposed a war tax on the superrich to pay for this, holds the GOP feet to the fire on what they want to cut to pay for this, etc., so at least we have some exposure of Republican perfidy.

What does the real presidential power think? You know, Sen. Joe Lieberman. Has he told us how the world is shaped yet?

Obama mentioned that there will be support civilians also going to Kabul, but do we know how many and of what kind?

One thing that does seem to advance the ball from the Bush Administration is a clear committment by us to withdraw on some timeline from both Iraq and Afghanistan, I’m just not sure that the getting out part is as clear as the getting in deeper part.

I know this: when the enemy is stateless, attacking any nation is just an illusion. Somehow, the warlords in Waziristan, the Northwest Territories of Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen and other “failed” states, all have to get the idea that it’s a bad idea to let Al Qaeda have a place to rest their heads. I don’t think it takes 100,000 Marines to get that idea across, but we seem too stupid and clumsy to figure that out.

Colbert seems similarly confused:

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